William Walton's Cello Concerto (1957) is the third and last of the composer's concertos for string instruments, following his Viola Concerto (1929) and Violin Concerto (1939). It was written between February and October 1956, commissioned by and dedicated to the cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, the soloist at the premiere in Boston on 25 January 1957. Initial responses to the work were mixed. Some reviewers thought the work old-fashioned, and others called it a masterpiece. Piatigorsky predicted that it would enter the international concert repertoire, and his recording has been followed by numerous others by soloists from four continents. Background and first performances Walton had been regarded as avant garde in his youth, but by 1957, when he was in his mid-fifties, he was seen as a composer in the romantic tradition, and some thought him old-fashioned by comparison with his younger English contemporary Benjamin Britten. After his only full-length opera, Troilus and Cressida (1954), Covent Garden announced that his next major work would be a ballet score for the 1955–1956 season. The ballet, a version of Macbeth, fell through, because Margot Fonteyn, for whom it was intended, did not warm to the idea of playing Lady Macbeth. By the time an alternative subject was agreed, Walton was committed to writing a cello concerto and his ballet score never materialised. The commission for the concerto was $3,000 – a substantial sum at the time. Walton commented that as a professional composer he would write anything for anybody, but "I write much better if they pay me in dollars". The concerto, commissioned by the cellist Gregor Piatigorsky followed the conventional concerto form to the extent of having three contrasting movements. As with his earlier Violin Concerto, written for Jascha Heifetz, Walton worked in close collaboration with the soloist while composing the work, mostly by correspondence between the composer from his home on Ischia and the cellist, touring internationally. Piatigorsky remarked that the world in the 20th century got its cello concertos from England – those of Elgar and Delius and then Walton. The premiere was postponed from December 1956 because Piatigorsky was ill. It took place at Symphony Hall, Boston, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Charles Munch. It received its first British performance within weeks, on 13 February 1957, again with Piatigorsky, this time with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sir Malcolm Sargent at the Royal Festival Hall. The work was